Questions to ask a web designer before you hire one

Choosing a web designer is partly about taste, but most of the problems businesses meet later are not about taste at all. They come from things nobody asked at the start: who owns the site, who can change it, what it costs to keep running and what happens if the relationship ends.

The questions below are worth putting to any designer or agency, including Page & Place. Where it helps, each one is followed by how Page & Place answers it, so you can see what a clear answer looks like. Ask every supplier the same questions and compare the answers, not just the headline prices.

1. Who will own the domain?

The domain is your web address. It should be registered to you or your business, with you named as the registrant, even if the designer arranges it or manages the settings.

Be cautious if the designer registers the domain in their own name “for convenience”. It can make moving away difficult and, in the worst case, leave the business without its own address.

At Page & Place, the domain remains registered to you or your business and you remain the registrant. Page & Place can manage the DNS settings and renewals while providing Website Care, but the domain remains yours.

2. Who owns the website itself, including the code?

Ask directly: when the website is paid for, what do I own, and can I take it elsewhere? A good answer says that you own the finished content and can receive the full website, in a form another developer could use.

Some arrangements tie a business to the original supplier, for example a proprietary platform that cannot be exported. That may be a fair trade-off if explained, but it should never be a surprise.

Page & Place’s answer is on the homepage: you keep your domain and code. Once the website has been paid for, you retain the domain and can receive the complete website source code so that another developer or hosting provider can take over. A normal source-code and account handover is included, with no standard release or transfer fee, and the website is not held to Website Care. Any extra migration work you ask Page & Place to carry out is agreed first and charged at £50 per hour.

3. Where will the site be hosted, and who looks after it?

Hosting costs money and needs someone to manage it. Ask who pays, in whose name the account is held, what is included and what happens if the site goes down.

Page & Place’s Website Care plan includes managed Cloudflare hosting and SSL, domain administration, routine software and configuration updates, basic uptime monitoring and technical fixes to existing Page & Place functionality. A separate guide explains what routine care covers and what it does not.

4. Who will update the content afterwards?

Most small businesses need to change opening hours, prices, images or a few lines of text from time to time. Ask how that works and what it costs.

The designer might do it, you might do it yourself, or it might be a mix. Each has consequences for cost, speed and who is responsible if something breaks.

Page & Place’s Website Care plan includes one consolidated request each month and up to 30 minutes of routine content work, covering menu, image, opening-hour and small text changes. The allowance does not roll over, and larger or more frequent changes are quoted before work begins. You can also have access to the source repository where appropriate and are not locked out of your own site.

5. What exactly is included in the price?

A low price can be cheap or incomplete. Ask for the scope in writing, and look for answers to these points:

• how many pages are included, and which ones;
• how many rounds of revisions are included;
• whether copywriting, photography, a contact form and search foundations are included;
• what counts as extra, and how extras are priced;
• how much is paid up front and when the rest is due.

Page & Place’s Website Design & Launch package is £500 and covers up to five core business and customer-facing pages, a responsive Astro website, initial search research and on-page foundations, one standard enquiry form, existing booking, ordering or social links, domain connection, launch support and two reasonable revision rounds. Payment is a £250 deposit, then £250 before launch. Additional standard pages start from £100 per page. Ecommerce, bespoke booking software, member areas, databases, extensive copywriting, unlimited revisions and substantial ongoing content work are quoted separately. The pricing page sets this out in full.

6. What will it cost to keep running?

Ask for the complete first-year cost and the cost of every year after. These usually include hosting, domain renewal, care or maintenance, business email and any third-party platform fees for bookings, ecommerce or similar.

Page & Place’s Website Care is required with every new website for an initial 12 months, at £25 per month or £250 per year paid annually. The first year therefore comes to £800 for the £500 website with monthly care, or £750 with annual care. Third-party costs, such as booking platforms or paid domain services, are identified before setup and shown separately unless expressly included.

7. How will accessibility be handled?

Accessibility means the site can be used by people with different needs, such as those who use a keyboard, a screen reader or a magnified display.

Ask whether accessibility is part of the build or an optional extra, and how it is checked, for example against WCAG 2.2, the widely used reference. A good answer mentions semantic structure, colour contrast, keyboard use, form labels and text alternatives for meaningful images, plus some actual testing. Be wary of any designer who promises that a site will automatically meet a legal requirement.

At Page & Place, content, accessibility, responsive and technical checks form part of the project before launch, and a standard Accessibility Statement is included among the supporting pages. See the accessibility statement for how this site approaches it, and the accessibility basics guide for practical checks you can run yourself.

8. What is the process, and how long will it take?

Ask what happens between the first conversation and launch and what the designer needs from you, since delays often come from missing content or slow approvals. Ask for dates in writing, based on the agreed scope, and treat any firm timeline given before the scope is clear with caution.

Page & Place sets out the stages of a project on the process page: an initial enquiry and suitability review, a discovery conversation and collection of factual content, a written scope with exclusions, responsibilities and payment schedule, a private direction or concept where selected and appropriate, a deposit and production build, two focused review rounds, content, accessibility, responsive and technical checks, and then final payment, launch, care-plan setup and handover. Page & Place does not publish a standard timescale; any dates would be agreed for your project once the scope is clear.

9. How will you help people find the site?

Ask what search work is included, and be wary of ranking promises, because nobody can guarantee a position on Google; Google’s own guidance says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking.

Page & Place includes initial search research and on-page foundations in every new website, covering titles, descriptions, headings, internal links, structured data, sitemap and indexing foundations, and Google Search Console setup. Search results cannot be guaranteed. More substantial research and ongoing work belong to separate Search Optimisation services.

10. Who owns the other accounts?

Beyond the website, businesses often have Google Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile, booking platforms and business email. Each should belong to the business, with the designer given access that can be removed later.

At Page & Place, the business owns its Google Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile, Bing Webmaster Tools and similar accounts. Page & Place uses delegated or administrator access where required, which you can remove when the relationship ends.

11. Can I see real work and speak to a client?

Ask which work is commissioned client work and which is the designer’s own project or concept, and whether you may speak to a previous client.

Page & Place labels work accurately: Clarke CAD and Emily’s Pet Services are commissioned client websites and WalkHilbre is a Page & Place project. References may be available on request, subject to the client’s permission and availability. See the work page for the projects.

12. What happens if we part ways?

Ask what happens if you are unhappy with the direction or want to move to someone else. Look for a written scope, defined revision rounds, clear payment stages and a clear handover. These protect both sides.

Using these questions

You do not need all twelve on a first call. Start with ownership, what is included, continuing costs and who updates the site, and ask for the answers in the written scope.

If you would like to see how Page & Place answers them in practice, read about how a project works, compare the published prices and boundaries or send a message with your own questions.